stuff/space

„However, minimalism has become the great, ironic conceit of the rich – the pretence of a lack of possessions. Walk down any impoverished Third World street, by contrast, and you’ll be struck by the maximalism of poverty – the laundry hanging across the pavement, the boiling pots, and the laden mules en route to market, the traders‘ wares spilling over the pavements, the noisy, sputtering vehicles, the stuff, everywhere. These are people without the means suavely to conceal their dependance on the clutter of goods, utensils and transport which, in their case, barely sustains them. Minimalism has become the signifier, in music as well as in art of capitalism’s pretensions to spirituality, rather than its lack of it, some discreetly enabled, airy form of super-being, in which „space“ rather than vulgar stuff is the thing.“ (david stubbs: fear of music)